The Ruins: Old Log Home-Trumie 1921 

Bennie Shaw at the Milk Bottle House: 1936

 1935 - Eve, Agnes, Rubye at the Farm House

1956 Cover Girl - Cabbage Patch - Eva Shaw

Buckley, Buck & David 2008                                     Special Hay 2008 CSWaters-Mixon

2013 Tom Shaw

2015 Easter Sunday at the farm

Danielle & Buck Shaw (Buckley & Debbies Children)

Who Is To Know?

She sat alone out on the porch With hen there in her lap While both hands held the bony birdSo neither wing could flap. She watched the far horizon, Saw dust clouds in the airAnd touched the old hen tightly As she rocked there in her chair. The men had long since marched to war And now she was alone. The wild hogs had ate the greens  That grew next to her home.The corn had tasseled long ago, Yet ears of corn were rare,  Flour, salt had long since goneAnd left her cupboards bare. The old home once had seen the growth Of boys to fine, young men, Now all there was to fill this space Was her and bony hen. She watched the path that they had gone, Now tracks of panther, coon And nightly prayed for all her boys To be returning soon. The floorboards creaked each time she rocked And soon her rocking slowed, She cupped one hand around an eyeto see far down the road. The chicken struggled to get down, But soon gave up the fight, The woman just stared down the roadAnd held the chicken tight. She sat alone out on the porch With hen there in her lap And softly rubbed the old hen’s neck Before she made it snap. They found her there a month ago, Her sons still off to war And there she sat in rocking chair With feathers on the floor. They say hers sons have come and left, The living was to hard And some have sworn on many days There’s chickens in the yard. They say a woman once walked in, Scared womenfolk and men, She walked across the parlor floor And held a bony hen. Through the years a few have come, But none has ever stayed, They hear a rocker on the porch As daylight starts to fade. Now who’s to know what is the truth, It’s many years since then, Yet even now upon the porch Are feathers of a hen.

Linda Lee: Dec 30th, 2020

Shaw Farmhouse 1973 CSWaters-Mixon 

Alachua Farm House 1980, on the old Hwy

1989 Farm House Pool_Maggie Faye, Heather Hawk & Krystal Dawn Hawk

Shaw Family Home - View From The Cemetery 2008 CSWaters-Mixon

 Bedroom Door at the Farm House - 'Eva'

CSWaters-Mixon

The Reckoning

I saw them all the day they came, The horse, the logger, both, Intending there to clear a path Amidst the forest growth. The horses leaned and chains pulled tight, While mules pulled them clear. I heard the tremble of the ground Ahead and in the rear. I watched them ready saws and men, I felt the axes pound, And soon I heard the mighty crack And I lay on the ground. They pulled me to a clearing near And stripped away my bark, And there I lay for many days Thru morning, noon and dark. The mules came and dragged me to A place of saws and cranks And there amid the shouts of men They cut me into planks. Now many months have passed since then, I hear the hammers pound, A wagon creaks and slowly stops, My planks lift off the ground. I feel them carve against my side, Then lay me on a floor, Lifting me, they place with pride My trim around the door. Down thru the years I’ve seen them come, I’ve heard the trot, the horn. My walls have seen the death of some, The same ones I saw born. I watched them come so gaily dressed, I watched the waltz begin And always I was proud to be A part where they walked in. I lived the years so sad and dark, Watched Missy walk the floor. I watched the dust of parting men As they rode off to war. I felt the hunger of those years On both side of my walls, Here Missy leaned against my side And reads, “Atlanta falls.” Sharecroppers came and tilled the fields, Plant cotton for a share. For many years no one has come, But yesterday an heir Unlocked my door and walked around With hammer and a nail, And there upon the worn door Placed a sign, ‘For Sale.’ My walls have weathered thru the years, There’s windows that have broke, The fields no longer grow a crop, Just scattered pine and oak. Twas late one night the heaven’s split, The whole house felt the jolt, Dry timbers fought as well they could Against the lightening bolt. But soon the fire ravaged hot, The timbers cracked and burned And from that night of fiery wrath No one has since returned. The door has long been fallen down, Decayed against its weight, I strain to keep the pillars strong, My fluted trim still straight. The years have slowly marched along From those of long ago, But there beyond the hills and fields I watch the forest grow And wonder if the time will come, When someone stands in awe And thinks of what that tree could be And gets out chain and saw. I hope that as their standing there And pick the favored tree, They see the beauty of it’s past And one day think of me. I strain against the mighty wind, Though walls are old and frail, I’ve lived the hot and steamy night, The hurricane, the gale. But now I know my time has come, There’s little left to hold. My timbers have been scorched and burned, My fluted trim is old. The pillars stand against the years, I know they are the crown And soon the welcome place I hold Will all be fallen down. Until the time that death pulls me Into a decayed heap, I’ll stand my watch as I had done While Missy was asleep. Perhaps when there’s a restless night And sleep will come no more, You’ll think of timbers hewn just right And trim around my door.

Linda Lee 2018

2013 Kendall and Papa Tom on the farm 

2013 Danielle Shaw

The Unexpected Guest
The weeds have claimed allotted plot
And time has hastened in it’s rot,
Metal now is bent and broke,
Home to spiders, not to folk.
Now sadness has consumed this spot.
I look and touch the silvered board,
It’s windows, roof in one accord,
The porch is sagging just a bit,
A few floor boards are weak and split,
But fighting on is its reward.
Reflections of the years gone past,
Its memories, so long and vast
Hold sadness with the strength of Rome,
No ancient columns, just a home
That now is crumbling fast.
I strain to hear the whispers there,
To write something that I could share.
Perhaps they have no words to say
In this home so old and gray,
It seems as if no ones aware.
The breeze picks up and cools the shade
While summer’s heat begins to fade.
I find myself alone despite
Birds flitting in the shafts of light,
I think perhaps I’ve over stayed.
The spirits have refused request,
It does no good to stay, protest.
The secrets will remain within,
Covered by the rusty tin,
Not wanting unexpected guest.
Linda Lee 2020

Shaw Farms

2014

2013

2013

2013

2013

November 16th, 2011 

 Erica Brough/Staff photographer 

Hay prices have nearly doubled due to droughts in Florida and Texas. Tom Shaw loads hay bales at Hillside Farm, Nov. 16th, 2011, in Alachua, Florida. Alachua farmer Tom Shaw said the area hay industry has been hit with a double-whammy this year: A lot of hay has been shipped to Texas, which is suffering from a catastrophic drought even while local yields were down from North Florida's own drought. That has resulted in less hay and higher prices to feed livestock and fears of a possible shortage before the next growing season in the spring. Shaw & Shaw Farms between Jonesville and Alachua has about 1,000 acres planted in hay. They use half for their 700 head of cattle and sell the rest to feed stores, cattlemen and individuals. Normally, the farm gets three or four good cuttings per season, but was down to two or three this year and the yields on those were down, you need to cut every four weeks for your protein, but due to a lack of rain we had to let it run five or six weeks just to get enough material to cut,"

2008

CSWaters-Mixon

Tom Shaw CSWaters-Mixon

John Deere Green CSWaters-Mixon

2008 CSWaters-Mixon 

Shaw Farms 2008 CSWaters-Mixon

Shaw Farms 2008: Silos CSWaters-Mixon

 2008 CSWaters-Mixon

The Old Oak Tree 2008 CSWaters-Mixon

Backside of Shaw Farms 2008 CSWaters-Mixon

May 2011 CSWaters-Mixon

 April 28th, 2003

PHOTO BY G.B. CRAWFORD, FLORIDA FARM BUREAU

Spring harvest It’s always harvest time somewhere. In Alachua in northern Florida, brothers Tom and Buck Shaw are harvesting English peas planted in late February. Despite losing some volume to freezes and a hailstorm, the Shaws expect to harvest all 120 acres of their pea crop. 

Gainesville Sun

Alachua - Forty years ago, the Shaw family lived on a dirt road dotted with farmhouses and surrounded by pasture land. Today, the road is paved. The rolling hills are lined with gated subdivisions and people are more likely to pass a four-door traveling to work in Gainesville than a pickup.

As the landscape has changed, so has their way of life, said Tom and Buckley Shaw, brothers and business partners whose father, grandfather and three generations before them farmed the land on the outskirts of Alachua.

Neighbors who have moved to Alachua to escape the sprawl of South Florida complain about the noise from irrigation motors at night. Nine people called City Hall one day, complaining about the columns of dust stirred up when the Shaws began to plow. A rookie cop wrongly tried to issue them a ticket for hauling peanuts on a county road after somebody complained they were a traffic hazard. “Used to, you never heard of complaints,” Buckley Shaw said. The Shaws, who raise cattle and grow hay, feed corn, vegetables, including string beans, and watermelon, belong to a dwindling number of large-scale farmers in Alachua County.

And while agriculture officials don’t know exactly how many of Florida’s 44,000 farms belong to families with a long history in agriculture, they say most, like the Shaws’ farm, have been passed down from generation to generation. Buckley, 50, and Tom Shaw, 53, say the future looks grim for large-scale farms, as the amount of agricultural land is squeezed by new developments and the costs of producing a crop climb higher and higher. Buckley said he plans to discourage his 7-year-old son, Buck, from farming because of the long hours, low pay and unstable future. “In 10 years, this is going to be obsolete,” Buckley said.

Shaw and Shaw Farms looks little like their father’s farm - a compact, 1,000-acre spread that surrounded the family’s 1924 farmhouse. Like a number of other Alachua farmers, Buck Shaw sold most of his property - a former dairy that delivered milk to local residents - in the 1970s as Gainesville expanded and the price of acreage in surrounding towns skyrocketed. Today, his sons farm more than twice as much land as he did, but it’s scattered on 24 farms across four counties. All but 100 acres of that land is rented. They partner with other farmers to farm another 2,000 acres.

The Shaws work six or seven days a week, often from early morning until well after dark. Because they’re often working miles away from each other, the brothers communicate with each other and a handful of full- and part-time employees using two-way radios and cell phones. They usually eat lunch with other farmers in a local bar, one television tuned to CNN and another to the Weather Channel. When they’re too busy to break for a meal, they eat in the field.

Tom Shaw’s wife, Linda, an assistant to a Gainesville doctor, said her husband and brother-in-law are never really through with work, even when they leave the farm every night. “We’ll get calls about the cows being out in the middle of the night. When your phone rings, your heart just kind of sinks because you think it’s your kid or something, and it’s actually the police department just calling to say you’ve got a bull out,” she said. She said the family loves the slower-paced lifestyle, but it’s difficult financially. “You don’t have anyone to get a paycheck from every month or every two weeks. People don’t understand that,” Linda Shaw said. “You don’t have a weekly paycheck, you don’t have retirement, you don’t have health insurance.” 

Riding behind the herd through the fog, Charles Shaw works to pen a herd of 80 cows to be pregnancy checked. Working with cattle is his favorite part of farming, Charles Shaw said.

Better equipment and fertilizers mean the Shaws are able to work faster and produce more than their father. But now farmers produce too many crops, saturating the market and pushing down prices, said Myron Bryan, president of the Alachua County Farm Bureau. For the Shaws, the price of raising a crop has skyrocketed since their father’s lifetime. Fertilizers that cost $40 a ton 40 years ago now cost $200 to $300 a ton, and a large tractor that cost $3,000 now runs more than $100,000. “Everything has escalated out of proportion of prices received for the product, which means farmers grow more,” Bryan said.

The Shaws say they won’t have much to show for the money they’ve put into the farm this year. For example, the brothers spent $95,000 on diesel fuel, $400,000 on fertilizers and other chemicals and $40,000 on insurance. Even though farmers sink significant money and time into their operation, there’s some things they can’t control. “You don’t have any control over weather, you don’t have any control over prices, and that can really get you stressed out,” Tom Shaw said. “It’s either too dry, too wet or you have an early frost or something like that. You plant a good crop, and then the price goes to heck. It’s pretty stressful and you wake up in the middle of the night sometimes thinking about stuff.”

This year, the brothers let 100 acres of string beans lie dormant because market prices flattened out. They absorbed a $35,000 loss because it would have cost more to harvest, package and ship the beans than they were worth. They only broke even on 750 acres of corn because of the drought. “We had to irrigate it so much that by the time we made our crop and sold it, there was very little money left because all of it went into fuel and labor,” Tom Shaw said. Every year, they bet that some crops will do well, balancing out the losses from the others. “That’s why we keep planting every year. This year, you may hit it and recoup your losses from last year,” Buckley Shaw said. 

After eating lunch at Captain Hugh’s Seafood & More in Bell, Tom Shaw and his son Charles Shaw listen as their group, which includes the Shaws’ farming partners Andy Crane and Tim Vaughn, discusses peanut prices which are guaranteed. Together, the four men harvest about 1100 acres of peanuts in Bell. “We know what we have to produce to make the money,” Buckley Shaw said.

Thirty or 40 years ago, if a crop failed, farmers could just increase their production the next year and recoup their losses, Bryan said. Today, it’s next to impossible to recoup the loss because the up-front costs are so high. And things could get tougher for Alachua County farmers if the County Commission approves a comprehensive plan that would place restrictions on the land if sold, he said. A group of farmers and builders are challenging the plan. The plan would act as a blueprint for growth, and is meant to preserve untouched land and curb sprawl. But Bryan said it could have the unintended effect of devaluing the price of rural property and forcing some farmers out of business.

“There’s probably some large farming operations that wouldn’t have the collateral to borrow to operate that farm,” he said. “They (farmers) despise it. We could live with the one we’ve got, but the new one - there’s no way we could live with that. It would put us out of business.” But the Shaws’ biggest fear is that they eventually won’t have enough land to farm. “It’s keeping your land and keeping your leases. Keeping land from being sold out from under you,” Tom Shaw said.

Bryan said using rented land is typical for local farms. “Many of the larger operations rent quite a bit of land. They can’t afford to own it all,” he said. Bill Brown, county extension director for the Alachua County Extension Service, said water use could become a serious issue for farmers as more people move into Florida, straining the state’s water supply. He said the situation will become even worse if the drought of the past four years continues. “People don’t understand as they drive across the countryside and can’t wash their cars, why farmers should be allowed to irrigate their crops,” he said.

Fewer young farmers are getting into the business because land is so expensive, said Bobby Shaw, a cousin who works for the Alachua County Farm Bureau. “There’s not a lot of money in it,” he said. 

At 22, Charles Shaw, Tom’s son, is less than half the age of the average Alachua County farmer, who is 58 years old. But he works on the family farm full time and says he could be the next generation to operate it. His parents, however, say they’ve tried to talk him into finding a job off the farm. “There’s not anything in it. He makes minimum wage,” Linda Shaw said. “That’s not good for a 22-year-old. What if he got married? He would never make it.” “It’ll be real difficult for him to keep (the farmland). You don’t know how long they’ll let you keep renting it,” Tom Shaw said.

Charles Shaw got a job at Alachua’s Dollar General distribution center, loading and unloading tractor-trailers. He quit a month later, even though he was earning a higher salary, had benefits and weekends off, and had gotten a promotion. “It was all right, but I couldn’t handle being inside all day,” he said, adding that he disliked the bickering among employees. Despite the long hours, Charles Shaw said he prefers working outdoors to working in an on-the-clock job. "Most times, I’m by myself and I’m doing my own thing,” he said. It’s that freedom - working outdoors and not having to answer to a boss - that keeps farmers in the business despite the pay and uncertainty, the Shaws say. It’s also a matter of pride.

“If we grow a crop, we want it to be the best crop, even against another farmer’s. When people are driving by the highway, we want our crop to look the best,” Buckley Shaw said. “Most farmers are real proud of things they’re doing,” Tom Shaw said. “I guess that would be the main thing - the satisfaction of knowing you went out there and have been tilling this crop for six months, made a good crop and hopefully made good money.”  “If you ain’t proud of what you’re doing, you ain’t going to last,” he said.  

 2011 Board of Directors

Myron W. Bryan – President
Wayne R. Oelfke – Vice President
C. Winston Rushing – Treasurer
William B. (Bill) Deas – Secretary

Board of Directors
Bill Brown, Gainesville
Kent Doke, Alachua
James Emerson
Thomas Malphurs
Harold Roland
Thomas C. Shaw, Alachua
Ronald C. Spencer, High Springs
Jonathan F. Wershow, Gainesville
Roger West

2007 Board of Directors

Kent Doke, Alachua
Alan Hitchcock, Alachua
Thomas C. Shaw, Alachua
Ronald C. Spencer, High Springs
Jonathan F. Wershow, Gainesville
William Brown, Gainesville
Wayne Oelfke, High Springs

1966: The Florida Future Farmer

~ Tom Shaw ~